Marty Supreme (2025) - A Guest Review by Chad Dixon

This is a comedy-drama film directed by Josh Safdie, starring Timothée Chalamet in the lead role as Marty Mauser, an aspiring Jewish-American table tennis star in the 1950s. Stuck in a mundane job in his uncle’s shoe shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, he dreams of the fame and fortune he might achieve by pursuing his passion. It’s a growing sport in which he has already become good enough to represent the USA in the upcoming British Open tournament, to be held at London’s Wembley Arena in just a week's time.

It’s Marty’s last day in the store before he travels to London. Just before lunch, a young woman arrives claiming she left her own shoes at the store the previous week when she bought new ones. Marty excuses himself from the elderly customer he was serving and claims he can sort out the issue. He leads the young woman to the back storeroom, but en route, he’s called into his uncle’s office. She ducks down to stay out of sight. Uncle Norkin (Larry Sloman) wants him to stay on and become the store’s new manager as he is great with the customers, but Marty insists on getting the $700 promised to him, as it’s his airfare to London.

Norkin backs down and promises he’ll give him the money by the close of business. Marty then continues into the storeroom with the woman and we discover that they are very well acquainted indeed; she is Rachel Mizler (Odessa A’zion), a childhood friend who is unhappily married and with whom he is having a passionate affair. A little later, during a "five-hour" lunch break, he meets with another friend, Dion Galanis (Luke Manley), and his entrepreneurial father Christopher (John Catsimatidis). Mauser presents a custom orange-coloured ping pong ball that he feels could revolutionise the game. This ball is the "Marty Supreme" after which the film is named.

Much later, Marty arrives back at the shoe shop just after it has closed. His colleague Lloyd (Ralph Colucci) is clearing up and putting the day’s takings away in the office safe. Mauser angrily demands the money he was promised and even reaches for a pistol he knew was in his uncle’s desk drawer. Lloyd stands up to him and refuses, but Marty threatens to shoot.

All of this happens in the first half-hour of the film's rip-roaring 2-hour and 29-minute runtime. The story continues at the same breakneck pace as Marty’s ever more desperate exploits to realise his dream get him involved with all sorts of characters - from low-level crime boss Ezra Mishkin (Abel Ferrara) to pen mogul Milton Rockwell (Kevin O'Leary) and his glamorous film star wife, Kay Stone (Gwyneth Paltrow). Marty improbably has an illicit fling with Kay in a ploy to get closer to her rich husband, as a possible sponsor for his sporting endeavors.

Apparently, Chalamet learned how to play like a competition-level table tennis player for this project, and it shows in the sporadic but quite convincing match scenes. The set design of the early 1950s is extremely authentic. Combined with wonderful performances from the countless "interesting" faces and shapes of the various minor characters, it adds to the atmospheric look and feel of this mid-20th-century urban world. The dialogue is fast-paced with loads of classic 'New Yoiker' accents, and there’s a good smattering of chuckle-worthy moments as Marty's fraught decisions create ever more calamitous situations.

If, like me, you don’t mind stories involving a protagonist with a specific determination who wades through a rough-and-ready world that is constantly throwing them curveballs, you will find this a very entertaining watch. With Chalamet in virtually every scene, his "heavy lifting" delivers another solid performance that further establishes him as one of the most gifted young actors of our age.

Poison (2024)

Directed by Désirée Nosbusch this intimate, high-stakes drama was adapted from the acclaimed play by Lot Vekemans. It is a chamber piece (small cast, intimate, character focused) that takes place almost entirely within the confines of a cemetery. In this case, a cemetery in rural Luxembourg.

The story follows Lucas, played by Tim Roth (The Hateful Eight, Resurrection) and Edith, by Trine Dyrholm (Festen), an estranged couple who have not seen or spoken to each other in ten years. Their only son, Jacob, died 10 years prior in a road accident. They are brought back together because they have been notified that toxins have seeped into the ground, necessitating the exhumation and relocation of their son's body.

As they wait for a cemetery official, who never seems to arrive, the two are forced to confront the poison of their shared past and relationship. Lucas, who walked out on New Year’s Eve years ago, has tried to move on. He has remarried, his new wife is pregnant and he has written a book about his grief. Edith, conversely, has remained frozen in time, unable to move past the moment their son was killed.

On the face of it, it starts off as a film looking to explore environmental toxicity and bureaucratic procedure but soon turns into the real poison - their unresolved grief. As the pair of them move between taking verbal swipes at each other, walking away, coming back, being temporarily tender and back to spitting poison, it becomes clear that Edith is angry that Lucas has apparently 'moved on' and has a new life, escaping what she thinks should be their 'forever' shared tragedy - while she simply can't.

Edith is clearly happy that she has a fresh audience with Lucas and opportunity to offload a bunch of her grief while they wait at the cold, deserted cemetery. It feels as though she is gloating in the fact that he has been forced, by this situation, to face what, it would seem, she'd been suffering with more severely than him all this time.

The film tries to demonstrate that Lucas views grief as something to be managed and eventually put away. His book and his new family are his way of surviving, but Edith views this as a betrayal and doesn't want him to be given any opportunity to 'forget'. But by the end of the film, the viewer realises that all is not quite what it seems and that nobody can 'recover' from such an event - only have ways of dealing with it. She tried during this meeting for a few hours to 'poison' his new life, but comes to realise that life really isn't that simple.

A surprise or two are revealed in this deeply claustrophobic story by the end, which is very slow, very arthouse-like, but certainly makes the viewer think and reflect. Very nicely shot with interesting cinematography making the most of focusing techniques for impact in this dull and drab location, nicely picked. Great to see Tim Roth, particularly, still willing to get involved in low-budget Indie projects, which has paid off here. It's less than 90 minutes and available now on a few streaming services.

Aftersun (2022)

I have been meaning to watch this for years now, well-reviewed and considered as it is - now available outside of Mubi on other streaming services, including the BBC iPlayer. Directed and written by Charlotte Wells, this a deeply emotional and subtle film that explores the blind spots of childhood memories. It is told through the perspective of Sophie, who looks back at a holiday she took with her father, Calum, twenty years earlier.

It's late 1990s at a holiday resort in Turkey. Sophie, played by the amazingly convincing young Frankie Corio (Bagman), is an observant 11-year-old girl and on vacation with her dad, who is about to turn 31. Calum is separated from Sophie’s mother and though he and Sophie share a loving bond, he is clearly struggling with something within.

They have fun playing arcade games and pool, go scuba diving (where Sophie loses an expensive mask, causing dad visible but suppressed stress), lounging by the pool and recording each other on their camcorder. As the holiday progresses, the film shifts between the past (so the actual events of the holiday in the 90s including the grainy pixelated video they shoot together) and the Present (31-year-old Sophie in her apartment, rewatching the tapes).

Sophie hangs out with some kids of her own age on the holiday - and some older - as they experience the coming of age process for her to see. She tries to join in a little by generating her first kiss with a boy her age. During this time we see dad practicing Tai Chi on the balcony in a trance-like state, smoking in secret - and at one point, walking into the dark, crashing waves of the sea at night. Dad is clearly very unhappy and struggling with his mental health, clues throughout, but putting a happy face on for his beloved daughter.

We jump back often to present Sophie, sat on her sofa, trying to reconcile her happy memories through the video with the truth about her dad that she was too young to see at the time, notably, now, the same age as dad was then. She is now able to see how unhappy he was and what the tragic reality was about for him, through the smiles. We see dad buying an expensive rug and 'pro' photo being done which he can't afford. We see him sat weeping, after the holiday, looking at a postcard he has written to Sophie (she's gone back on a flight without him, presumably, as planned). We see him sadly saying goodbye to her at airport as she fools around. Then, when gone, he turns again back into sadness and the oft-visited 'rave' in present-day Sophie's imagination in which she, adult, tries to get him, still 31, to dance.

There's not really any big reveal at the conclusion of the film and much is left to viewers to piece together - and I've probably given too much away here as it is. It's a film about grief and loss, anger, mental health issues, depression - the symbolism and atmosphere rich with the reality of the flickering (in the rave) memories and a broken man trying to hold life together. This is particularly symbolised by their last evening on the holiday together as she tried to get him to dance while Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie plays and we're encouraged to focus on the lyrics. It's sad, seen through the eyes of an 11 year-old's 'happy'.

Paul Mescal (Gladiator II, Hamnet, All of Us Strangers) plays dad as thoroughly convincingly as Corio does Sophie. Terrific performances, the pair. A poignant story of a man drowning whilst keeping the love of his life afloat. One which reflects that when it comes to mental health issues, many of us might not see the truth behind the facade of those right in front of us, particularly close family. (Aftersun, being the pain left behind following exposure, difficult to fix and recover from.)

It's a terrific film which you have to be in the right mood for - it's often slow and observational with long sections just 'hanging out' with Sophie and dad on the holiday, but with deep meaning and atmosphere beyond. Beautifully shot in terms of the location, sunny resort, littered (obviously) with handheld footage which they have been creating. Script is great, production super, direction and writing spot-on with Charlotte Wells stating that the story is "emotionally autobiographical" reflecting her own experiences with her dad. Recommended.

Dangerous Animals (2025)

We talked about this film in the Coming Soon section of our Projector Room Podcast and we thought that it looked deliciously inviting. We were not wrong! Directed by Sean Byrne (The Loved Ones), Dangerous Animals is a 'Shudder' made survival-horror/thriller that follows the story of a trophy-collecting serial killer, a bit like Dexter but on the Australian waters!

We start the tale by following our fruit-loop, Tucker, as he invites a pair of naive young adults out on a chartered 'diving with sharks' experience. It's a short excerpt where we see the grizzly end of the chap - and are left to guess what becomes of the girl! Cut to another couple who bump into each other by chance and end up hanging out, then sleeping together, then she, independent woman, skips off in the morning before he (Moses) can cook the bacon!

She (Zephyr) goes off to do some early morning surfing and couldn't have picked a worse time - as Tucker, who happens to be lurking around, kidnaps her. She wakes up in a holding room in his boat, below the waterline, and we then realise that the green girl from the first excerpt is still alive, the pair of them now chained to fixed iron beds.

We then find out a bit more of what Tucker is up to as he drugs the two girls, chains Zephyr to a fishing seat to watch the show - that being the other girl, Heather, being winched and dipped into the dark waters after he's thrown blood and gore in - so that he can video-tape it for his Snuff collection! This is no spoiler really as much of what has been said so far is in the trailer!

Zephyr presents as a loner, living out of her van, no base, escaped the unhappy family home while Moses is a rich-boy with a very different outlook. When she skips off in the early morning he's really upset and wants to find her and have more time to see what might come of their liaison, other than a hot night of sex! So he heads off in pursuit, not really knowing where to start, or even her last name, with no help from the authorities for what is clearly a missing 'drifter' who he'd only known for 24 hours!

Tucker is clearly a shark-obsessed loon, who gives speeches now and then for dramatic impact about how they are the ultimate purifiers of the universe! So, with rich-boy on the case, spunky, resourceful Zephyr not giving up lightly (ironically impressing Tucker) and a bunch of hungry sharks in the drink, it's shaping up nicely into a half-decent serial-killer-thriller. And it kind of delivers. It's not bad at all. The acting is generally pretty good from the main leads - Hassie Harrison, Josh Heuston, Ella Newton and Jai Courtney - the script isn't too bad, sound is good with plenty of background tracks and the set all feels, well, a bit Jaws'y!

Survival is the key and we follow along suspensefully at times towards a climax and grand finale which I won't spoil for you here! There are a few gory special effects which are done well-enough, but actually the best of them is nothing to do with the sharks and lingers in the mind more by suggestion and imagination than actually seeing it - watch out for that one! So in Jaws, the 'monster' was always the shark whereas here, it's much more about Tucker fulfilling the brief - Dangerous Animals! Well worth a look and it's just now started arriving on streaming.

Cinderella's Curse (2024)

I thought that this film was a production from the TCU (Twisted Childhood Universe), like the whole Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey, Bambi: The Reckoning and so on, but turns out that someone else has got in on this low-budget bonkers filmmaking as well! In this case, ChampDog Films who similarly seem to be creating gory versions of children's fairy tales! So here it is, then a kind of 'remake' of the Cinderella thing with some twists.

Directed by Louisa Warren, as per Sleeping Beauty's Massacre and Mary Had a Little Lamb, this involves the traditionally abused Cinders getting hold of a 'cursed' book in order to wreak revenge on, well, pretty much everyone around her - including nasty stepmother, wicked stepsisters and the usually nice-guy prince!

She is told her father is away on business, but she is effectively their prisoner and we find out later that actually wicked stepmother has bumped him off! She does have one friend who is maid in the house, which looks very much like a small castle on the side of a Scottish Loch, called Anja. But she has an accident so doesn't last long into the tale! Cinders tries to steal some pain killers from the nasty trio, but they all get caught and we have our first taste of what they are capable of as they tie Anja to a table and give her what-for!

While burying Anja's body in the woods, Cinders discovers an ancient, flesh-bound book which summons a fairy godmother when opened. Not a magical being with a wand though, rather a skinless, demonic creature in a dress, accompanied by some other creatures who seem to like to feast on the flesh of the recently-deceased. Anyway, for her trouble, Cinders is offered 3 wishes, the first of which she uses to get to dance with the prince, who had recently visited the house and bumped into her below stairs. The catch with the wishes though is that if she takes all 3 instead of stopping with just 2, she's going to end up like the grizzled 'fairy godmother' in her hellish world.

Turns out that the prince is a bit of a cad too, so yes, joins Cinders' list of people on whom revenge will be due. At the dance, Cinders gets tricked and ends up being abused by everyone there and naked on the floor as they all mock and laugh at her plight. Cinderella, now empowered with supernatural strength and wielding her glass slipper as a dagger, systematically slaughters the guests and her family in various interesting and gory ways! You can imagine what happens about the third wish and where she ends up, covered in blood, wielding her glass slipper!

It's more maniacal nonsense of course but it feels a bit like there's been a bit more money thrown at this one than some of the others and the acting, though not Oscar-winning calibre, is kind of alright - and some of the special effects and gore have actually been done quite well and thoughtfully. I didn't know any of the cast, but I guess I might get to do so the more I delve further into this ChampDog thing. Up next seems to be one of the ones I mentioned above - and not, as we might expect, Cinderella's Revenge which confusingly seems to have roots in yet another film production outfit. I'm lost already! It's on Amazon Prime Video if you fancy - though I do get the feeling that I'm probably talking to myself with this stuff!

Infinity Pool (2023)

Director/writer Brandon Cronenberg, son of David, has created this complete bonkers two-hour film a couple of years back in which, being fairly thick, I couldn't work out what on earth was going on or what it all meant! But you will, no doubt, do better than me and not have to resort to YouTube reviewers to explain it for you!

It's the story of a strange resort in a fictitious country which seemingly locks their guests within their compound because it's too dangerous to roam outside because of poverty, crime, no consequences and a breakdown of civilised society. (I seem to remember my sister telling me that they had to do this when they visited Cuba some years back.) Our two main characters, James Foster, played by Alexander Skarsgård (The Legend of Tarzan, True Blood) and his wife Em (Cleopatra Coleman) have headed off there to get away from it all.

He is a writer, with one book under his belt, but has suffered with Writer's Block since it was published 6 years prior. He's looking for inspiration. James is not wealthy and Em's family are loaded. Her dad doesn't like James so Em purposely married him to get back at him. So there's that bubbling agenda eating away at their relationship to start with - and we haven't even got to the story yet! When they arrive, they bump into Gabi Bauer, played by Mia Goth (Pearl, X, MaXXXine), and her husband, Alban, played by Jalil Lespert. Gabi flirts with James telling him what a fan she was of his book and the four of them start doing 'couply' things together.

One day, Alban and Gabi have arranged to borrow a car from a friend and the four of them head off to an isolated beach/cove, even though they have been warned to not go out of the compound. They have a great day, Gabi flirts even more with James, then, he being the only one sober enough to drive, takes the wheel. On the way back to the compound there's a major incident on which the story turns, as they run into and kill a local farmer. Next thing we know is the following morning, police banging on the door and James and Em being dragged off to the local nick!

And this is where the story turns on its head into something otherworldly and bizarre as we learn what the resort of La Tolqa is, and what goes on there, all previous, suddenly up in the air. At this point it's hard to go on without spoilers, so to quote IMDb, we start to see the resort's perverse subculture of hedonistic tourism, reckless violence and surreal horrors. The boundaries of identity and morality are blurred through a gruesome kinda sci-fi loophole. Just one teaser for you, it seems that the local law requires "an eye for an eye" when wrong is done one to another, so someone is looking for just that! But it's not quite as simple as that and again the story switches towards the surreal and bonkers territory as we find out about a 'loophole' for wealthy tourists to wriggle out of the barbaric revenge culture!

We then have a long section of the film where the above is played out, tripping on drugs, mindless violence, executions, a bunch of sci-fi stuff, memory-meddling and all sorts of nudity, orgies and horror. At this point, the film is often presents in a surreal 1960s trippy fashion! As time goes on, James gets into what is going on but Em is scared shitless, so opts, eventually, to leave. This leaves James to pursue the experience with Gabi, Alban - and a group of other similarly-wealthy tourists, which gets more and more bizarre.

Eventually, James starts to question it all and tries to pull himself out and away from what's going on around him. But by this stage, it seems like it might be too late! There's lots of symbolism yet to play out and the climax of the story and finale are actually quite surprising as all is revealed, the vacation ends and rainy season arrives!

We certainly see plenty of nudity, gore and violence in the film but the actors seem to do a good-enough job to work with the whacky material involved. Mia Goth stands out as the sultry seductress turning into homicidal maniac at times, nurturing friend and lover at others. Skarsgård plays the lead convincingly, moving from initial apathy to horror to enjoyment and back to horror and apathy, looping. It's an interesting set with lovely scenery - and the various special effects done well-enough.

Anyway, be warned - it's completely bonkers and for anyone looking for that, they will be delighted. Seems to be available now on various streaming services. Nutty!

Europa Report (2013)

Still on my quest to see more of Karolina Wydra I headed off across space with her and the crew of Europa One, as they become the first (fictitious of course) humans to go to Jupiter's fourth largest moon, Europa. It's basically shot in a 'found footage' style, becoming pretty much a sci-fi thriller.

The 'report' bit is because the story is presented non-linearly, framed by interviews with mission control staff back on earth who are watching/reviewing as long as they can - because 6 months into the journey a solar storm knocks out the ship’s communication with them so they can track it no more. So we're then pretty much solely onboard with the crew and living their adventure.

As you will imagine, not everything goes smoothly, systems go wrong, unexpected events occur with potentially catastrophic outcomes which they have to deal with, drawing on their experience, technical knowledge and guts. They eventually make it to the surface of the moon on their landing craft, despite all the above - but landing in the wrong place on the surface - they have no choice other than to carry on and try to explore what they find, where they are. 

They manage to use a robot drill to carve a hole through the ice and once underneath, we probably have the most interesting part of the film to be honest, as its camera starts to explore the water beneath, looking up at the ice, with the crew agog as they hope/expect to find signs of life. Wydra's character gets a suit on and heads out with lab gear on top of the ice and excitedly does indeed find some sort of algae or unicellular organism - so yes, proof of life! However, while she's doing it, a sinister blue light appears under the ice and everyone suddenly gets concerned about radiation.

One thing leads to another and the crew reckon they'd better hot-foot it out and off of the surface, back to Europa One. Of course, not much goes to plan and, again, they have to deal with one crisis after another. I won't spoil any of the outcomes in case you've not seen it but it's certainly worth the wait, if you can stand the 'found footage' style of filmmaking, for the grand finale.

It's pretty well acted by the cast, though it doesn't feel much like anyone's trying too hard. There are various back stories threaded in about people's families back home and what they're going to do when they see them again, questions about people having been short of oxygen in part of the chaos who might be losing their grip on reality - the usual mix of a good claustrophobic sci-fi thriller, fairly low-budget feel, with a closed set and controlled environment.

Director Sebastián Cordero leads Sharlto Copley, Michael Nyqvist, Christian Camargo, Daniel Wu, Karolina Wydra (Pluribus, After) and Anamaria Marinca as the core six of the crew, with the (now) late Isiah Whitlock Jr. amongst the number back on earth. It's a decent little thriller that passes just over 90 minutes nicely - not terribly exciting - more, well, scientifically interesting, I guess. Worth a look.